Volpone Analysis

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The intense confrontation between Volpone, Celia, and Bonario is framed with hilarious scenes of the Would-Bes. The subplot reaches its comic peak when Lady Pol confronts Peregrine, veering the tone towards farce. She is deliberately fooled by Mosca into mistaking Peregrine for a woman disguised as a young boy. This lightly parodies Volpone’s pretense to be near death in the story. Furthermore, the ironic sexual disguise would have been greatly enjoyed by the Elizabethan audiences. Frequently Shakespeare dressed his heroine in boy’s clothes in his comedies. However, the women’s parts in contemporary theatrical productions were usually played by young boy apprentices. Therefore the irony of this device is immediately apparent. Jonson inventively inverses the usual comic approach and compounds the irony even more. He possibly aims to satirize other playwrights’ reliance on the stage tradition. The audience knows Peregrine is not what Lady Pol claims he is. He is just an innocent bystander, similar to Bonario and Celia in the courtroom scene. Albeit guiltless and even virtuous, they are condemned because Mosca disguises these victims to be people they are not with lies.
Even though Lady Would-Be gives Peregrine a quick apology after being corrected by Mosca, Peregrine still feels slighted and promises to take revenge upon Sir Politic, leading to the climax of the subplot and foreshadowing the resolution of the main storyline. “Am I enough disguised?” Peregrine asks his accomplices as he enters Sir Politic’s house. Different from Volpone and Mosca, his ambition is to frighten only, not to cause serious harm to Sir Pol. However, he is urged by his helpers to “prick his guts,” which the temperate Peregrine rejects. Like a satirist, Per...

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...at a successful and enjoyable drama should follow. They are the unity of action, the unity of place and the unity of time. Jonson’s Volpone, however, states in the prologue that “As best critics have designed; the laws of time, place, persons he observeth, from no needful rule he swerveth.” He omits the mentioning of the laws of action and hence does not obey it. Namely, the subplot involving only Peregrine and Sir Pol deviates from the rule that a play should only have one main action. Thus, Jonson’s unity of action lies in multiplicity, as the central plot and subplot interweave, repeat, and invert the same themes. The subplot bridges the gap between the Elizabethan audiences and the Venetian setting. But most importantly, it complicates the interpretation of the main action through its contrasts and parallels, heightening the struggle between the fox and the fly.

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